CHRISTALLER: principles, ideology, science

Date de publication : 30-08-2017

The "principles" of Walter Christaller are, at the same time, moral, ideological and scientific. The «General principles» are logical and explicative. The «Operative principles» are functioning rules which have an influence on the choice of methods and techniques.
Due to the global signification of his "principles", the affirmations of Walter Christaller must be examined at the same time with a scientific and ideological approach. When his geometrically wrong affirmation and not demonstrated mathematical assertions are used without attention to their racial employ, their totalitarian contents are recovered. Reciprocally, condemn his practice of racial space planning do not exempt from examining and criticizing scientifically the alleged «natural» and mathematically «obvious» character of its false geometrical solution of the distribution «central goods».

To measure central distance between places represented by points on a map Walter Christaller draws straight lines between places with the same population. This cartographic representation is “obviously” scientifically and "objective " and "neutral”. In reality it is determined by the will to create a pyramidal hierarchy of the central places according to their population. Therefore, these are not straight lines drawn between populated places which allowed Walter Christaller to deduct the hierarchy of places (line ® distance ® function ®hierarchy) but the hierarchy of the central places which allowed him to measure the distances separating them (hierarchy® line ® distance ® function).